Life Besides a Board Year

As most of you will expect, sleep is a bit overrated during a board year. Or actually, just overrated. Besides the monthly drinks, activities, being at the rooms all day there is so much more you can do!

Text by: Anouk Verhagen

For example, when the rooms are closed you can go home and take a nap. No, just kidding. As some of you maybe do not expect, I really like playing basketball. In the beginning of the year, it was uncertain whether I could play games, but in the end the coach luckily decided that I could be a part of our team to play games even though I was not able to join a lot of Wednesdays for practice.

The team atmosphere is really good and we had several team events. I can remember that we had practice and afterwards in the changing room we got the question: “What kind of stuff shall I buy for the gourmet on Sunday?” At first everyone reacted really surprised and thought that it was logical if you say you are going to gourmet what kind of stuff (meat etc.) you should buy. However, this was definitely not the case. We have talked an hour about all the different possibilities of how you can gourmet. As it turned out every country has a different view on the gourmet. In the end, we came to the conclusion that we wanted to raclette. Here the basic ingredient is cheese and you add a slice of salami to it. It even was on the box of the gourmet! #shocking

We also went to a really nice escape room (unfortunately not everyone shares my opinion) which was a bit scary and not everyone made it until the end. Yvonne was too scared and stepped out, but then she could watch us on the screens and the people who worked their told her what they were doing to make us more scared. We escaped with only one minute left and afterwards they showed us what kind of stupid things we did during the escape room. It was really fun to see how everybody reacted really different. Afterwards we ate together, but suddenly the electricity was shut down. Even outside there was no lights. When this happened we screamed and immediately put down some candle light because people connected this to the escape room. But enough about my basketball life.

Besides that, I also have done a lot of things with our members. This year it was the first time for me that I went to Cuijk with Carnaval. Even the road to get there was a lot of fun. Some of us had brought a bottle with booze with them. When we switch trains, Erwin had a bottle of Schrobbelèr in his hand and the people of the station stopped him. They said that he should drink this up or throw it away. Of course he and Masum (I believe) ‘at’ down the bottle which was half full. But the funniest part of this was, that when they joined the rest of the group back in the train, Masum grabbed his own bottle out of the plastic bag he carried. So, he drunk down the bottle of Schrobbelèr and then smuggled his own bottle into the train.

During this year, I learned to make sushi myself! We came together a few times, but I want to highlight the first time. Full of enthusiasm, Pierre, Thomas and I were ready to make sushi for the first time. Floor had made sushi before so she was our learning master. Especially the part cut a cucumber needed more explanation, but we enjoyed a delicious meal. After the sushi was gone, Jochem decided to join because we had made him clear that it was really nice and that he should regret it if he would not come. Hence Jochem asked what we were doing and our answer was: ‘things’. Yeah really just ‘things’. After he joined the party things got escalated. Floor stills blames the chair instead of the liquor 43 that she felled of his chair. And Jochem hated his bike so much that he just threw his bicycle on the streets and then walked away and after 3 minutes came back to pick up his bike. It still makes me laugh when I look back on this evening.

Also, it is possible to start a relationship during your board year. In the beginning Tim was the only one with a relationship and now Linda is the only one without. I think the rest of my board members will agree with the fact that we did not expect this in the beginning of the year. Still I want to give Thomas some advices: Do not throw with glasses, and if they ask in a restaurant if you are allergic for something, you should mention all of them. Otherwise you can ask if there is codfish in the dish and this will result in sending your plate with food back to the kitchen.

Besides that, there is so much more I can talk about. From cocktail evenings, to going to the Toppers in Concert, poolen with our Faalpooltennisteam and going on ‘Kansloos Meiden Weekend’ but in that case the article will become huge. Therefore, I will stop right now and I am curious to see what great memories are next!